


Within Earshot

by Surrealities



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M, M/M, Star accidentally makes her very own AU., before season 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-03-25 00:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13823052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surrealities/pseuds/Surrealities
Summary: Buried in the discount piles of Quest Buy's Potpourri section, Star Butterfly finds a used genie lamp with a single wish remaining of its original three. She knows it's a bad idea, but, hey, who could pass up a chance at a genuine genie wish? Especially at a price like this!Still, you've got to be pretty careful with how you word a genie wish. Star knows that much. Unfortunately, wording isn't the only thing you have to watch out for.





	1. Loyalty Coupon

Star knew not to trust anything from Quest Buy marked at a ninety percent discount, especially when said discount was only the latest in a column of less generous discounts crossed out with streaks of black marker. 

“It's such a good deal though,” she said, more to herself than to Marco, who’d lost all sense of both caution and frugality somewhere in the refrigerated foods section, now about two hours’ worth of meandering behind them. 

“Yep. Pretty good deal,” he said from a few feet away, where he had collapsed into a pile of ghost plushies that let out horrible wails every time he shifted. 

“I mean, it's a little dangerous if you're not careful,” she said, “and there's only one left, so I wouldn't get an easy re-do if I messed up the first time, but I can probably handle it.”

A screaming toy had drowned out everything between “little” and “probably,” so Marco was left to fill in the blanks himself before he answered. Exhaustion led him to a more charitable interpretation than he might normally have mustered.

“Of course you can handle it,” he said. “You're Star Butterfly. You can handle anything.” He twisted a bit to look at the watch strapped around his wrist. Almost eight o’clock. They'd been searching for something for Star to use her loyalty coupon on for a little under four hours. “Eventually.”

Star looked down at the object in her hands, a small smile creeping onto her face. “Yeah. You're right. I can handle anything.” She pressed her cheeks to the thing's cool, golden surface and whispered, “Hear that tough guy? I can handle you, easy peasy.”

The lamp didn't respond. 

Star nodded at it, eyes narrowed. “Glad we understand each other.”

Marco lifted his head off of the ghosts and, after waiting for the wails to die down, said, “So are you getting it?”

“Yeah, I think I will,” Star said, clutching the lamp to her chest, mind already overflowing with the possibilities.

“We can go home?” 

Star skipped over to the ghost pile, reached down, and tugged Marco to his feet. “Let's go home,” she said.

A few hours before, Marco might have called the screeching that followed them out of the thirty-first aisle of Quest Buy’s Potpourri department ominous. Now, it only sounded like the sweet alarm of a successful jail break.

***

Later that night, with the trip to Quest Buy separated from the here and now by a hot bath and a shared tub of ice cream, Marco was starting to feel a bit less sure about Star's purchase.

The two of them were in Star’s bedroom, lounging on opposite ends of her bed. The lamp sat between them, enshrined on Star’s biggest and comfiest pillow. “How many wishes do these things usually come with?” Marco asked.

“Three. Or four, if the genie was born on a leap year,” Star said. “The sticker says this lamp had three to start with.”

Marco leaned closer to the lamp. Said sticker, a red, ovular blemish marring the otherwise pristine face, read, in bold, capital letters, “GENIE LAMP, GOLD GRADE, 2/3 USED.” 

“So whoever had this lamp before you had three potential wishes handed to them on a silver—well, golden, I guess—platter, and they decided to get rid of it with one left? Doesn't that strike you as a little suspicious?” Marco said. 

“Oh Marco,” Star said, waving a hand dismissively. “They didn't necessarily decide to get rid of it. It could've been stolen! Or maybe they died and a Quest Buy employee just happened to stumble across their skeletal remains. You'd be amazed what great things you can find during an incidental skeleton encounter.”

Marco decided not to follow up on how, exactly, Star had found out about the potential riches of “incidental skeleton encounters” in favor of keeping on topic for once.

“How is that last one any less suspicious? What if their wishes were what got them killed?”

“Nah, that can't have been it. Genies are pretty tricksy little devils, but they're bound by ancient magics never to cause direct harm to any other sentient being. It said so in the instruction manual.” 

“It came with an instruction manual? I didn't see one when we were buying it.” 

“Well it's not this specific lamp’s instruction manual,” Star said, combing her fingers through her hair. “But it was for a similar model.”

“Where is it?”

Star jabbed a thumb in the direction of Marco’s bedroom. “Found it on the interwebs when you were in the shower.” 

“It's internet, Star. We've been over this. You failed a computer competency quiz because of this.”

“I’ve heard people call it the interwebs before!”

“As a joke, Star. No person below the age of seventy has ever called it the 'interwebs’ and meant it.”

“Well joke's on you, 'cause interwebs is a much better word than 'internet.’” She accompanied this last word with a pair of violent air quotes.

Marco rolled his eyes. “Well, whatever you want to call it, the 'interwebs’ is kinda an Earth only thing, and most of us Earthlings don't get off planet all that often. Who could have possibly gotten their hands on any model of working genie lamp?”

“What do you mean? You guys have genie lamps! I have personally seen at least two movies with genies in them, and one of them was even live action.” She tapped her chin. “Those movie genies were a lot nicer than the real deal, though. The blue one gave his master everything he wanted, even though the guy's wishes were super vague. That genie could've caused some real life ruining mischief with material like that, but he didn't even try. You gotta be super specific with real genies. Can't just tell 'em to make you a prince, else they'll do something like rewrite your entire life in whatever way is funniest for them, then tell you they fulfilled your wish 'cause your new last name is 'Prince.’”

Marco eyed the lamp like it might leap off of the pillow, attach itself to his face, and suck the ill conceived wishes straight out of his brain. “If all that's true, then maybe you shouldn't be handling it.”

“Marco, it's a free wish. A free genie wish! Do you know what genies are capable of? They've got some limitations, sure, but if you work around them, they can make almost anything come true.” Star had leaned in so close she could see her own eager eyes reflected back at her from the lamp’s gleaming surface. 

“I don't mean you should give up your wish. I mean, you did pay three dollars and a ten dollar coupon for it. I just meant that maybe you, uh…” He glanced at Star. When she lifted her eyes to meet his, he coughed and turned to stare at one of her posters. “Maybe you shouldn't be the one actually making the wish.”

The bed shifted as Star pushed herself upright. “What do you mean?”

Marco chewed at his bottom lip. “It's just, you don't always, you know...” He chanced a look back at Star, whose expression clearly said that no, she did not know, and that Marco's explanation better be a bit more flattering than it was starting to sound. “...think things through?”

For a second, Marco thought she might start yelling. Instead, she smiled. “Oh? And you think you’d be a better choice, Mr. Monster Arm?”

“Look, I know I’ve messed up in the past,” Marco said. “But you’ve got to admit, my track record for good, responsible choices is a little bit higher than yours. Just tell me what wish you want to make, and I’ll figure out how to word it without causing some kind of irreversible catastrophe.” 

“Excuse me! All of my catastrophes are at least seventy percent reversible,” Star said.

“Star—”

“No! Don’t you ‘Star’ me! I bought this lamp with the help of the only Quest Buy loyalty coupon I’m eligible for this year. The only one!”

“I will pay you double the value of that coupon if you let me make the wish,” Marco said. 

“You can’t put a value on Quest Buy loyalty coupons, Marco!” 

“You can. It was worth ten dollars. By definition, it was a ten dollar value. I will give you twenty.”

Star snatched the lamp off of the pillow. “There’s only one person in this room who’s going to be wishing on this curvy fuel receptacle, and that person’s name is not Marco Diaz.”

Star laid the flat of her palm against the lamp. “I’ll let you watch, though.”


	2. Loyalty Coupon - Universe B

In a timeline that hadn't quite caught up with the present, Marco Diaz was digging through the discount piles of the thirty-first row of Quest Buy’s Potpourri section, looking for something to spend his yearly loyalty coupon on. His best friend, the half-demon prince of the underworld, Tom Lucitor, lounged atop a nearby shelf, flipping through a pet enthusiast magazine he'd bought to keep himself entertained while Marco rooted through the megastore's many nooks and crannies for something that was both useful and under ten dollars. Unfortunately, most things that fulfilled the first criteria only matched the second if they were also either faulty or intentionally dangerous, so the trip had thus far largely involved Marco just barely avoiding second and third degree burns, various maimings, and at least three different kinds of curse

Tossing aside a snake-shaped scarf that had, predictably, tried to crawl up his arm and tie itself too tightly around his neck the moment his fingers touched it, Marco said, “I'm starting to feel like this might have been a total waste of time.”

“Not a total waste of time,” Tom said. He rolled to the edge of the shelf and dangled the magazine down for Marco to see the page he'd been reading. “I now know which eleven Mewni pets are the best bang for your buck in combined cuteness and danger. Number ten may surprise you.” He leaned a bit further off of the shelf to whisper, “It's kittens.”

Marco chuckled. “Anything on there that's worth less than ten bucks and won't destroy the furniture?”

“Eh. You could probably get one of these oversized conductive tardigrades for pretty cheap, but they need a specialized pen and have a pretty specific diet that I'm not sure Earth is equipped to handle.”

“Well dang, there goes that idea.” Marco picked up a sword with a tag that declared it to be an 'authentic whispering blade,’ but when he brought it up to his ear to see if it actually whispered, it instead shouted, loud enough to almost shock Tom off of his shelf, “I WILL SWALLOW THE SOULS OF EVERYONE YOU HAVE EVER KNOWN AND LOVED, ALL FOR THE LOW, LOW PRICE OF 9.99.”

“Nope,” Marco said, tossing the thing over his shoulder. It landed in a pile of plushie ghosts that let out a cacophony of wails that matched the sword in volume and then some.

“If I get to the bottom of this pile and haven't found anything, I'm going to buy you a subscription to that pet magazine, and we'll go home and pretend this was a success,” Marco said.

“Nice. Next month’s the 'beach buddies’ edition. Can't miss out on that.”

The silence of the next few minutes was broken only by the occasional “No” and a clatter or thump as Marco dismissed another item. Tom had vanished his magazine in a brief burst of flame and now lay, arms dangling over either side of the shelf, staring up at the light fixture above.

“Yes!” Marco exclaimed at last. 

“Find something?” Tom asked. 

“Yeah! Well, maybe. What do you think?” Marco asked, nudging something cold and metallic into the demon’s hand.

Tom lifted the item into view. It was a golden oil lamp. A bright red sticker near the spout declared it to be a “GENIE LAMP, GOLD GRADE, 3/3 USED.” 

“Well?” Marco asked. 

“It's a pretty nice lamp, for three dollars. Real gold, too. Bet you could make a decent profit off it down on the homeworld. You humans seem to have a thing for gold.” Tom passed the lamp back down to his friend's waiting hands. 

“I'm a little more interested in the whole genie thing than potential resale value,” Marco said. “Is it an actual genie lamp? Magic dude, three wishes, et cetera?”

“It was, but it's out of juice. Says so on the sticker. The 3/3 is three out of three wishes used.”

“Guess that's why it's only three dollars,” Marco said. He sighed, but he shoved the lamp into his hoodie pocket anyways. “Might as well get it for the resale value, then. And hey, we can still afford your pet magazine subscription.”

“Dude, I will plaster your corkboard with so many cut outs of dogs wearing floaties you won't even care that you missed out on a three dollar genie,” Tom said, floating down from the shelf and landing, with practiced grace, at Marco's side. 

“The perfect accent to that awful Lisa Frank calendar you pinned to it,” Marco said. 

The pair made their way back to the books section, moving with speed and purpose now that their course of action was secured.

Tom hovered nearby, gazing vaguely at a shelf of best sellers from around the multiverse, while Marco filled out the subscription information. “You know,” Tom said, tearing his eyes away from the title of the nearest book, which was written in runes that pulsed neon red in tune with his heartbeat. “I don't think I ever asked why you even have a Quest Buy membership. We've only been here like, once.”

“I came back a few weeks ago because I was looking for something I couldn't find in any of the other shops I tried. The cashier kind of bullied me into the membership while I was checking out,” Marco said.

“You went to Quest Buy without me?” Tom asked.

“I think I've hit a point in my relationship with the greater universe where I no longer need a babysitter every time I step off planet,” Marco said. “Besides, you were busy. That was the day Star showed up to my house on fire and dragged you off to, uh, 'help her sate the hunger of the eternal blaze.’ It was mutually decided that you needed to be a little more fire proof than the average human to be of much use.”

“Oh right. The eternal blaze mishap.”

“Mishap? You literally light yourself on fire multiple times a day, and yet you somehow managed to come back with half of your hair singed off.”

“Half is a bit of an exaggeration.” Tom toyed with the ends of his hair, which was tied back in a ponytail severely reduced from its previous length. “Only a bit, though.”

Marco had finished the form, and the two boys were now on their way to the checkout lane. “What exactly does an ‘eternal blaze’ consist of?” Marco asked. 

Tom said, “It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s a spell some more, uh, ‘adventurous’ people like to try out. It’s supposed to cast a flame that burns forever. The current version of the spell, the one Star was trying out, works, in that it makes a fire that will burn forever if you don’t stop it. Unfortunately, the only reason the fire continues burning after the initial fuel source runs out is because it’s magically compelled to seek out new fuel sources. So it devours anything it can to keep burning.” Tom shook his head. “When I got there, Star’s spell had already eaten her bedroom and half of the castle library.”

“How’d you stop it?”

“We had to borrow a pair of dimensional scissors to cut a portal into a dead dimension and usher it in there with a pile of books.” 

Marco stopped in his tracks. “A dead dimension?” 

“A dimension where the apocalypse happened and went badly for everyone involved, basically,” Tom said. “The blaze can go ahead and have fun in there. No one’s left for it to hurt.” 

“You know what?” Marco said. “I take back what I said. I do still need a babysitter for some of this extradimensional stuff.” 

Tom threw an arm around his shoulders. “That’s what you’ve got me for.” 

Once upon a time, Marco might’ve shrugged Tom away, or at least made an attempt to seem offended at having another guy hanging off of him. But that was before . . . well, it was before a lot of things. A lot of things that Marco wouldn’t have given up for anything, including the universe they’d left behind. 

But he didn’t know about that yet. No one did. Not until about two hours later, anyways, when Tom, who was looking the lamp over as the two of them scoured the internet for an idea of exactly how much they might be able to hock it for, tried to rub what looked like a smudge off of its face, and the thing erupted into a cloud of multicolored smoke. 

The two boys staggered out of the cloud, gagging. The smoke smelled like cheap perfume and tasted like a mouthful of sprinkles. “What was that?” Marco managed to cough out through the sleeve he was holding over his mouth and nose. “I thought you said that thing was empty!”

“That’s what it said!” Tom said as he tried to wave the smoke away.

“Was that what it said?”

This was a new voice, deep but clearly feminine, with a bit of a noir dame touch. 

With a sudden gust of wind, the cloud parted, revealing a woman who was humanoid but clearly not human. Her sky-blue skin was altogether too smooth, her navy, braided hair too perfectly tied. Her eyes were almond shaped, with yellow irises and the slit pupils of a serpent. She smiled, revealing a pair of tiny fangs. 

“Who are you?” Marco asked. 

The woman looked at him in disbelief. “Are you serious?” She glanced over at Tom. “Is he serious?” When Tom was late to reply, she said to Marco, “I am very clearly a genie.” She indicated her entire body with a sweep of her hands from head to waist. “If it’s my name you want, you can ask your friend in about . . .” She looked down at her wrist, where a tendril of smoke wrapped itself around her and coalesced into a watch with a plastic, rainbow strap. “Five.”

“Five what?” Marco asked. 

“Four,” the genie said, still looking at the watch. 

“Three.”

“Two.” 

“One.” 

As the watch ticked out this last second, Star Butterfly remembered, very suddenly, that she was not supposed to be a demon boy named Tom Lucitor.


	3. Potentials

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a rough chapter to write, but it should get most of the Universe A bookkeeping out of the way so that next time I can write what I'm really interested in. Still, hope you enjoy!

The pre-wish universe's end had begun with the sweep of Star’s hand across the lamp's golden face. 

As in the post-wish universe, this ushered forth a perfumed cloud so sugary sweet that it sent Star and Marco scurrying away. From that cloud stepped a woman, humanoid but inhuman, with skin the color of sky and hair the shade of night. As the last of the cloud faded away, she regarded the pair with curiosity, the tip of one nail tapping at her bottom lip. 

“Huh,” she said after a long moment. “Not sure what the fates are playing at with this one, but I suppose it’s not really my place to say.”

“Come again?” asked Marco, who was now standing near the window, trying to rub smoke out of his eyes.

“Nevermind,” the genie said. “I say any more and it’ll be a serious breach of wisher confidentiality. How about instead I roll that back and we start over with a more traditional greeting?” 

When neither teen objected, she cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and said, in a voice that shook the room, “I am Amiandru, denizen of the lamp that you,” she pointed at Star, who had backed nearly into her mirror during the earlier scurrying, “now hold. By your touch am I bound to serve, and by your wish shall I be set free.” The genie beckoned Star to her. When the girl approached, she leaned in to whisper, “Normally I’d say ‘wishes,’ but as it turns out, someone already used up two of mine. Kind of a weird circumstance. Sincerest apologies.”

“Nah, it’s cool. Sticker already warned me,” Star said, sinking back onto her bed. 

“Sticker?”

Star pointed to the red sticker still clinging to the lamp she held like an egregious pimple to a teenager's face. Amiandru reeled back as if she'd been slapped. 

“What have they done to my lamp? Those stickers never come off all the way! I'll have glue residue gumming up my beautiful domicile for centuries!” She collapsed onto Star's bed in mock sorrow, throwing her arm over her eyes. “Oh, who could have done such a horrible thing?”

“Quest Buy,” Marco said, “where horrible things come free with every purchase of one dollar or more.”

Amiandru peeked past her arm. “Quest Buy? Surely you're joking.”

“Nope,” Star said. She held up a finger, then dug around in her pocket for a moment before pulling out a wrinkled receipt. She handed the receipt to Amiandru, saying, “I was pretty surprised to see you there, too. Quest Buy's always got lots of interesting stuff in its discount piles, but it's usually not good stuff, you know?” 

Amiandru’s eyes narrowed at the price. “Thirteen dollars? In the discount piles? At Quest Buy?” She glanced at Star. “The universe has had to move in strange ways to land me in your hands.” 

“If I ask what the heck you're talking about, are you just going to feed me another line about wisher confidentiality?” Marco asked. 

“Yep,” the genie said. 

“Great,” Marco said. “Glad we got that cleared up.” 

Amiandru sighed and crumpled up the receipt. “In any case, we have more important things to attend to than the universe’s targeted attacks to my pride.” She turned to Star, lips spread in an indulgent smile. “You have a wish to make, do you not?” 

“Of course!” Star said. 

When a moment of silence didn’t draw the wish out of the girl, Amiandru said, “And what would that be?”

Star fidgeted. “I’m not entirely sure yet.” 

“What?” Marco said. “You sounded pretty sure a few minutes ago.” 

“I couldn’t just sit there and let you insult me,” Star said. “I was kinda hoping I’d come up with something while she was talking, but everything I thought up was either not good enough or unethical.”

“Unethical?” Marco asked.

“Maybe a little,” Star said. She turned her head away from Marco to hide the slight blush tinging the edges of her heart-shaped cheek marks.

Amiandru chuckled. “Ooh, that wish. Teenagers always seem to consider it. Thankfully, for your sake, it's a wish we—that is to say, genies—cannot fulfill. We do have at least some sense of morality.”

“What kind of wish are we talking about?” Marco asked.

Star waved her hands wildly in an attempt to stop the genie from replying. Amiandru pretended not to see her. “A love wish, of course,” the genie said.

Marco sputtered. “A love wish? You mean, like, wishing that someone would fall in love with you?” He glanced at Star, who stopped waving and shoved each fist under the opposite armpit. “Were you really thinking about making a wish like that?”

“Only for a second,” Star said.

“Wow, Star. I didn’t know—”

“It’s not like tha-”

“—you liked Oskar that much.” 

Star stopped mid-sentence. “Oh. Oskar? Oh. Oh yeah! I am so desperately in love with Oskar Greason that I would consider unethical methods to convince him to date me. Just Oskar. No one else. Who else would there even be? Psh.” Star laughed, too loud and too high for truth. 

Marco seemed not to notice. “Well, at least you realized it’d be wrong. Something like that would make you no better than Tom, you know?”

“Yeah,” Star said, breathing it out in a sigh. 

Silence threatened to rule again as this line of conversation closed. Amiandru cleared her throat to break it. “Now that we know what wish you will not be making, have you a better idea of which you will be?”

Star shook her head. “No. I know even less than I did before we started talking, to be honest.” 

“I see,” Amiandru said. “If that’s the case, I’ll take my leave. It certainly won’t help you think things through if I’m hovering over you the entire time.” She reached toward the lamp, and her body began to dissolve into the smoke that had heralded her arrival. “Ah,” she said suddenly, before she’d fully vanished. “Just a second. I should mention one thing before I go.” The remainder of her—just her head and right shoulder, now—turned to face Star. “Now that you’ve summoned me, I am duty bound to grant the next wish you utter in my presence. Do choose your words carefully from here on out.” 

“That’s the plan,” Star said. 

Amiandru nodded. “Then I’ll bid you a good night. If you need me, simply rub the lamp again or call out my name. If I’m within earshot, I’ll answer.”

***

The ensuing week was a thing of starts and stops, of Star deciding she’d finally stumbled across the right wish, then realizing, just as she was about to summon Amiandru, that she didn’t want it as much as she thought she did, or that there were more holes in her wording than a brick of swiss cheese. Marco tried to help as much as he could, but many of her wishes were too embarrassing or otherwise private for her to share, so providing anything but moral support proved difficult. 

“This would be so much easier if I had all three wishes,” Star complained to Marco at lunch the Friday after buying the lamp.

“How so?” Marco asked, twirling a fork through a pile of lunchroom spaghetti.

“I wouldn’t have to make sure my wish was absolutely perfect, you know? I’d have three chances to get it right, and a re-do if I mess up the first or second one too bad. It’d be so much less stressful.” Star pushed herself away from the table and slumped in her chair.

“Hey, at least you’re taking it seriously. When you do make the wish, it’ll be way less likely to backfire,” Marco said. 

Later, in the post-wish universe, Star would remember Marco saying this and would laugh, in a strangled, panicky sort of way, at the fact that less than two minutes later, everything would go to hell.

“I hope you’re right,” Star said. “I just wish I knew what I wanted. I keep thinking up things I’ve wanted in the past, and now that they’re actually in reach, I’m realizing exactly how stupid most of them are.” 

“Like what?” 

“You know how every once in awhile I wish I wasn’t a princess?” she said. “Think of how many ways that could be misinterpreted. Even if it wasn’t, there’d probably be side effects I don’t actually want. Like, what happens to my family? Are mom and dad not king and queen anymore? Do I end up with some other family entirely? It’s—”

“Wait,” Marco said, cutting her off. “Do you smell that?”

Just beneath the smell of cheap tomato sauce and too many teens shoved together in one room wafted the scent of perfume. 

Star’s eyes darted to the bag on the floor beside her chair. Creeping out from between the teeth of its front zipper were tendrils of rainbow smoke.  
“No no no no!” Star said, leaping out of her chair and diving onto the bag. She tried to wave the emerging smoke back into it. “I didn’t mean that! That wasn’t my wish!” 

“Star, what’s happening?” Marco asked. 

The smoke gathered on the empty chair beside him, coalescing into the form of Amiandru. “What’s happening,” she said, her voice becoming more distinct as she grew more and more solid, “is that Star made her wish.”

“That was not my wish!” Star said. “It was literally part of a sentence explaining why it was not my wish!” 

“Listen, I hear you,” Amiandru said, holding up her hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not an idiot. I can understand basic sentence structure in a few hundred different languages. That’s not the problem here. It’s just, kind of a genie thing, you know? If I hear my master say, ‘I wish,’ I have to grant whatever follows it, unless the wish would break one of our tenets. My hands are tied.” 

“Now, without further ado,” the genie said, when Star, sitting stone-still and silent in her chair, offered up no arguments. Amiandru resumed the same booming voice she’d used during her introduction. “By your touch was I bound to serve, by this wish shall I—” 

Amiandru was cut off as Star whipped her wand out from its hiding place and started to shout a spell. Before a single word could leave her throat, the wand vanished. 

“You won’t be needing that anymore,” the genie said. When Star leapt at Amiandru anyways, brandishing her fists instead of magic, the genie summoned up a clear barrier between herself and the enraged girl. Star slammed into it, face first, and fell back, dazed.

She turned to Marco, whose hands were now readied for his own attack. “How about no,” she said, and she placed a hand on Marco’s forehead. The boy immediately dropped to the floor, asleep.

“Goodness, neither of my other master’s wishes were quite this eventful,” Amiandru said, surveying the fallen duo.

Around her, other teens were gathering, but none of them seemed willing to approach the woman who had just taken out their magical princess classmate and her loyal companion in monster fighting. Amiandru smiled at them, and then returned to her work. “By your touch was I bound to serve,” she said, resuming her earlier incantation. “By this wish shall I be set free.”

***

Star would never know how long it took Amiandru to settle on the solution to her wish. Thousands of potentials spread out before her like photos in an infinite dark room, their details and their consequences becoming clearer by the second. One by one she tossed them away, until only one potential remained. Only this, she knew, as she prepared to enact the incomprehensibly complex magic that would make such a reality true, would fulfill Star’s wish, as well as the open wish her previous master had left her with.


	4. You Remember

Remembering an entire life in the course of a second was a shock Star was ill equipped to handle. He could feel panic stirring in his stomach and making its way to his throat. He gagged and took a step backward, toward the doorway. He wanted to sprint to his room, shut the door, and curl up in a ball in the corner until he could form a coherent thought over the double barrage of memories assaulting his already fragile psyche. If he could just get up to his tower and grab Marshmallow, he'd be able to—but wait, no, that was wrong, wasn't it? Marshmallow lived in the basement, in the bedroom Star had designed as a more human friendly version of his room in the Underworld. Plastic skulls and skeletons from a year-round Halloween store replaced the bone decor of home, and he'd hung strings of red lights across the walls to give the room an approximation of the firelit glow that colored the Underworld. For a while, his walls had been plastered with the same posters his old room had borne, but almost all of those had been replaced with Earth souvenirs or photos of his adventures with Marco and his other human friends. 

The tower had never been conjured onto the Diaz house, because this universe's “Star Butterfly” had never come to Earth. Instead, Earth got “Tom Lucitor,” whose parents had decided to sign him up for a student exchange program, supposedly with the purpose of improving the humans’ perception of demons, but, in reality, designed to put Tom in a high school where his less than demonic disposition wouldn't attract as many assassination attempts. It had worked on both accounts, for better or worse. Tom's good looks, magic capability, and the edge of his demonic upbringing, however blunted by his Mewman half, made him popular with the other students. Earth, as the realm with the fewest connections to the multiverse at large, was largely protected from extradimensional assault, so assassination attempts were rare, and his own demonic power, combined with the surprising strength of Marco's human karate, served as enough of a deterrent to turn what few did make it through into little more than a series of infrequent nuisances.

Star tried to use his prior self as an anchor to keep himself from swirling away into the rising flood of his panic. Star Butterfly would see the mischief in this turn of events, would find a way to make it fun and be assured, the entire time, that this fell within the reversible seventy percent of her catastrophes. Star would have pranced into the bathroom to make stupid faces in the mirror, or spent minutes waving her hand in front of Tom's extra eye.

But this Star was not the type to interpret new experiences as sure fun. Too often, new experiences for a young half-demon heir meant new potential threats, and new potential threats meant being alert, being aware, and refusing to take it easy until careful scrutiny had proven the situation benign. 

This situation might not be immediately dangerous, but it was far from benign. It had triggered his fight or flight reflex, and it was only confusion that kept him rooted.

Before Star could decide whether or not to move, he felt a hand grasp his shoulder. 

“Hey,” Marco said. “You okay?”

Star let Marco’s grip guide him back into something resembling a normal thought process. 

“Marco, I did something really stupid,” he said. He shuddered at the uncanny feeling his voice now held for him. It was the voice of Tom Lucitor, but Star's definition of “Tom Lucitor” was no longer just “evil demon ex-boyfriend.” Fifteen years of a new life had added a second definition: “myself.” Likewise, “Star Butterfly” was still “myself,” but it was also “wild Mewman ex-girlfriend.” 

“What stupid thing could you have possibly done in the two hours since we bought this lamp? You've been with me the whole time!”

Star struggled to put together an explanation that wouldn't read as complete nonsense, but when he came up empty, he settled for the first full sentence he could arrange. “I might've kinda sorta made a very bad wish on this lamp a long time ago.”

“Oh, you most certainly did,” the genie said. “I almost feel bad. Kinda got you on a technicality, there. But we genies are ‘pretty tricksy little devils,’ as you well knew.” 

Marco gawped at Star. “You were the one who used up the lamp’s wishes?”

“Not ‘wishes.' Just 'wish,’” Star said. “It only had one left when I found it.”

“And then you, what, forgot? Your life's so full of weird and interesting stuff that making a genie wish didn't quite register on your list of things worth remembering?” Marco shook his head and sank onto his bed. “How do you live like that?”

“I didn't forget because of anything like that. She made me,” Star said, pointing an accusing finger at the genie.

“And thank goodness for that,” Amiandru said. “Imagine if I’d let you keep your memories when I made the switch. You were just a baby. You wouldn’t have been able to understand. No good would have come of it.” 

“Then why have a change of heart almost fifteen years in?” Star asked.

With the air of a teacher addressing her class, Amiandru said, “The master must always be able to see the results of their wish with their original self intact. If that self is no longer available, we are permitted to engineer its reappearance.”

“Alright, well, results seen. I certainly have viewed these results. And let me just say: wow. Just. Wow. This certainly is a way to interpret that wish I didn't even make,” Star said, throwing his hands up into the air.

“I can see you’re a bit upset,” the genie said. She sat down on the bed beside Marco and patted the spot next to her. “Why not have a seat? Let’s have some tea while we chat.” She conjured up three filled and steaming cups and floated one to each of the boys, taking the last for herself. 

“I don’t want your tea,” Star said, but he grabbed it anyways and took a sulking sip. 

“Might want to wait ‘til that cools,” the genie said.

Star glared at her, all three eyes narrowed, then threw back his head and downed the entire cup in one gulp. 

Amiandru said, “Ah, right. Demon. I almost forgot.”

“How could you forget?” Star asked. “Me being a demon is what this entire conversation is about! Speaking of that little factoid, I have a couple of questions. First of all, what? Second, why?”

“The what should be fairly obvious. I went back in time and switched your soul with Tom Lucitor's just after you were born.” To demonstrate, she created two images, one in each of her palms. The first was Star Butterfly—the blonde haired, Mewman version—in her favorite seafoam green dress and striped leggings combo, wearing her horned headband and brandishing her wand at some unseen adversary. The other was the original Tom, with his shorter, upswept hair and jagged-edged star t-shirt. As Star watched, the two images began to age backward, passing through teenager, preteen, child, and toddler before halting at infancy. Amiandru pinched both images, and with a motion like tearing off a bandage, ripped free two indistinct, transparent shades. One pulsed with white light. The other crackled red. She dropped them both into the opposite bodies, white into the demon, red into the girl, and leaned back. “That was all I did. Everything that came after? That was all you.” The two images began to age forward until, once again, a miniature Tom and Star stood before them. 

There were differences between this Tom and Star and the two Amiandru had started out with. The fundamentals were the same, but finer details didn't quite match up. The new Star’s blonde hair, for example, was a pixie cut tipped with red, while Star's version of Tom had shoulder length hair he usually kept tied back, with a part in the front to keep his third eye clear. (It had been longer, but the aforementioned eternal blaze mishap had eaten a good two-fifths of it.) In clothing, the new Star favored dark colors, with splashes of red and violet here and there, while the new Tom stuck mainly to pastels, especially the seafoam green he'd loved so much in his previous life.

If you had set each image beside its prior counterpart, they would look less like two versions of the same person and more like a pair of twins who had long since diverged in interest and personality. It was easy for Star to look at one purple demon boy and see “him” and the other to see “me.”

“What about my second question?” Star asked. The little Star and Tom vanished. 

“The why is more complicated,” Amiandru said, waving a finger so that Star’s cup refilled itself. “I had a prior obligation to fulfill, and this interpretation of the wish was the only way to do so.”

“A prior obligation?”

“Another wish.”

Star blinked. “You needed to do this to me—to us, I guess, counting first round Tom—because of another wish? What wish? By who?”

“I can't say.”

“Wisher confidentiality?”

Amiandru nodded. “Now you're getting it.”

Marco, who had thus far been sitting silently on the bed, staring back and forth between the sparring pair while a cooling teacup danced circles around him, stood up and turned on them both. “What the heck are you two talking about? Wisher confidentiality? Soul swapping?” He turned to Star, fists clenched. “You aren't the real Tom?”

“No,” Star said, then thought better of it. “Yes. I mean, I am the Tom you know. I'm not, like, some interloper playing body snatcher with your buddy. I just wasn't born as Tom. I was supposed to be Star. I was Star for almost fifteen years, before I got my hands on the lamp.”

Marco relaxed a little. “So you're still my Tom.” 

An interesting way of putting it, Star thought. “Yeah. Still your Tom,” he said.

Marco slid back onto the bed beside Star. “What in the world did you wish to end up in this situation?”

“I didn’t wish anything. What I did was say ‘I wish’ and follow it with ‘I wasn’t a princess anymore’ where Amiandru could hear me,” Star said. 

“To be fair—”

“I refuse.”

“—that’s a pretty dumb thing to say near a genie.” 

“I am aware,” Star said through gritted teeth. His fingers were itching to curl up in some bunny fur. 

“Oh, look on the bright side,” Amiandru chimed in. “It all turned out just fine, didn't it? You still have Marco and the rest of your little Earthling friends. You don't have your wand, but you still have magic. You're handsome, you're popular . . . You even have a massively increased life span.”

“What about my family? I don't have them anymore,” Star said. 

“But they are at least safe and well. And what of your new family? Do you not love Dave and Wrathmelior?” 

“Of course I do. They raised me. The second time through, anyways. But I'm not even their son. Not really.” Star said. A tear teased at the edge of his top eye.

“I do believe that fourteen years of calling them 'mom’ and 'dad’ without being corrected qualify you for the title of 'son.’” Amiandru said. When Star only sniffled in response, she said, “Oh, goodness. Here.” With a click of her fingers, Star's little pink bunny, Marshmallow, popped into her hands. The genie passed him to Star. “Cuddle your bunny and stop fretting so much.”

Star buried his face in the bunny's back like he was a small, soft pillow. Marshmallow’s nose twitched, but he kept calm and still in his master's hands. Marco laid his hand on Star’s head and gave it a few slow pats. 

“Hey, uh, genie?” Marco said. 

“Amiandru,” the genie corrected him.

“Right. Amiandru. Maybe you should go.” 

Amiandru considered the two boys, tapping her chin with one long-nailed finger. “Perhaps you're right. I must admit, I am a little eager to be on my way, anyways.”

“Why?” Marco asked.

Amiandru smiled wistfully, looking out Marco's window to the glittering night beyond. “I've fulfilled all of my wishes. I'm free to go and live a life.” She sighed. “I’ll never again have the power to turn back time or swap souls or grant true second chances, but I get the feeling I won't miss it.” 

She stood and bent down to pick up the lamp, long discarded by the boy whose hand had summoned her back into the world. She turned to Marco. “Would you consider selling this to me? My offer will be quite generous.”

“It's yours, isn't it? Just take it.”

She stroked a finger along its golden face, stopping at the Quest Buy sticker. She passed her finger over it, and the wording changed from "GENIE LAMP, GOLD GRADE, 3/3 USED" to simply "OIL LAMP, GOLD." “This lamp has never been mine," she said. "I would like it to be.”

Marco shrugged. “Fine, then. Current going price is four dollars.” 

“Oh, I think I can do a little better than that,” the genie said. “Just check your bank account in the morning.”

With that, she took her leave, not in a puff of smoke, but through the door like an average mortal, clutching the lamp close to her chest. Star and Marco both sat in silence until they heard the open and close of the front door. 

“Good riddance,” Star grumbled into Marshmallow’s fur. 

Marco gave his head another pat. They sat in silence for a moment, until Marco said, quietly, “So when she was taking about the things you still have from the other universe, she mentioned me and the rest of our ‘Earthling friends.’ You still ended up here with me, even as Star?”

Star removed his face from Marshmallow’s back and patted the disturbed fur smooth. “Yeah. I still came to Earth, we still ended up as housemates, we still fought all kinds of things side by side. We still ended up best friends. Everything was just . . . kinda different.”

“Different how?”

“Like . . . you remember the day I came to Earth?


End file.
